The Circular Economy: Reducing, Reusing, Recycling

Revolutionising the construction industry, the circular economy is set to be one of the biggest ways to boost the sector's sustainable and environmental capabilities. If adopted globally, this visionary strategy will upend the "take, make, waste" approach, transforming it into "reduce, reuse and recycle."

As the UK Green Building Council states, the circular model "builds overall system health by gradually decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finitire resources."

Statistics predict that global material use will more than double by 2060, with the building and construction sector expected to be responsible for a third of the rise. By adopting a circular approach, construction companies can make the most of the resources they have in their arsenals by recovering and recycling materials, repurposing or reusing existing assets, designing with longevity and adaptability in mind, and choosing low impact methods.

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For a sustainable future, a regenerative, circular economy that rewards the reuse of finite materials and resources must take its place.

The UK Green Building Council

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A Circular Reality

Inspired by the potential impact of the circular economy, we are committed to increasing our efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle. Several of our recent projects have shown just what can be achieved.

During the demolition phase at One Broadgate, we supported British Land and contractor SRM to recover structural steelwork when was in turn reused by another developer. Additionally, 200 tonnes of granite was recovered from the façade of the existing building to be reused as floor tiles in the new development. Not to mention the 32,000 floor tiles, 200 office chairs, 168 doors and 875m² of carpet tiles that we recovered for reuse and recycling.

It was a similar scenario for the demolition phase of 2 Finsbury Avenue: a sustainable high-rise office project aiming to achieve net zero carbon and a BREEAM Outstanding rating. Again, we supported both SRM and British Land to recover a variety of building elements that could be reused in the new building, including aluminium façade cladding panels and almost 10,000m³ of floor tiles. The rest of the materials recovered were recycled in line with the circular economy ideals.

Over in Birmingham on 103 Colmore Row, we reused the concrete basement and raft foundations, resulting in much less concrete being needed for the basement and associated temporary works and ultimately generating significant embodied carbon savings. By using a high level of cement replacement, we were also able to cut embodied carbon in the core.

As well as all of the above, 98% of our waste was diverted from landfill in the year up until October 2022, with 84% of the waste created on our sites being recycled and 14% used to produce energy. An impressive 100% of all plastic waste recovered from our sites was also recycled.